Fire Bill O\'Reilly!

Dear Chairman Ailes,
It pains me to be the one to bring this to your attention, but one of your marquee FOX News personalities is willfully distributing inaccurate information. Although I don\'t live \"the fast life\" like people such as yourself in New York City, I do possess common sense. \"Inaccurate information\" results either from idiocy or lying, and your FOX personality, Bill O\'Reilly, is distributing \"inaccurate information\" with alarming regularity. Here are just a few examples from 2005. If you want more specific details you can visit Media Matters:
May 10, 2005:
O\'Reilly misleadingly claimed Real ID Act passed Senate 100-0
As proof that \"politicians are finally feeling the heat on the illegal [immigrant] issue,\" Fox News host Bill O\'Reilly misleadingly claimed that the \"the Real ID Act passed 100-0 in the Senate.\" In fact, the Senate never held a vote specifically on \"the Real ID Act,\" which requires states to verify that an applicant is a legal resident of the United States before issuing the applicant a driver\'s license. Rather, the legislation was attached to the emergency supplemental appropriation bill for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The only way to vote against the ID measure would have been to vote against the entire funding bill.
June 7, 2005:
O\'Reilly\'s tax falsehoods: 50 percent \"don\'t pay any federal income tax,\" estate tax \"unconstitutional\"
Fox News host Bill O\'Reilly falsely asserted that \"50 percent of Americans don\'t pay any federal income tax\" and that therefore \"the other half is waging the whole war on terror.\" He also claimed that the estate tax is \"unconstitutional,\" an assertion the Supreme Court rejected in a 1921 decision that has been repeatedly upheld over the years.
While O\'Reilly claimed that half of all Americans do not pay income taxes, figures from the Tax Policy Center show that only 37.2 percent of total tax units -- single people or married couples -- pay either zero or negative taxes, or do not file at all, leaving 62.8 percent who do pay taxes.
July 25, 2005:
O\'Reilly wrongly accused Cyrus Kar of possessing bomb timers
Fox News host Bill O\'Reilly wrongly attacked American Cyrus Kar, an aspiring filmmaker detained for seven weeks and later released by the U.S. military in Iraq for suspected links to the Iraqi insurgency. O\'Reilly falsely claimed that Kar possessed bomb components when he was captured by Iraqi police. In fact, the Pentagon determined that the components -- washing-machine timers typically used by Iraqi insurgents to detonate bombs -- did not belong to Kar, but instead belonged to the driver of the cab he had hired. Kar was eventually cleared of any connection with terrorists.
August 31, 2005:
O\'Reilly falsely accused La. governor of not requesting more National Guard troopsFox News host Bill O\'Reilly falsely claimed that Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco \"failed to ask for more [National Guard] troops from the feds, knowing she only had about 6,000 to control a city of 1.3 million\" and that \"[i]t was not until Wednesday, August 31st, three days after the storm hit, that Blanco admitted she didn\'t have enough security in the city.\" But according to Department of Defense officials, Blanco and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour had requested additional Guard personnel before the storm hit.
September 26, 2005:
O\'Reilly falsely claimed he retracts his false claims
On the September 26 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Bill O\'Reilly claimed that \"if we make a mistake ... we will retract, and we will apologize, and we will put it up.\"
Media Matters for America has identified and corrected hundreds of O\'Reilly\'s falsehoods, made both on his radio show and on Fox News\' The O\'Reilly Factor -- the vast majority of which he has yet to retract. Rather than correct his own falsehoods, O\'Reilly lashes out at those who expose them or simply denies that he erred.
October 5, 2005:
O\'Reilly wrongly claimed that \"about 50 percent of the country\'s pro-life\"
On the October 5 edition of Fox News\' The O\'Reilly Factor, host Bill O\'Reilly falsely claimed that \"about 50 percent of the country\'s pro-life.\" In fact, less than 40 percent of Americans identified themselves as \"pro-life\" in a recent Gallup poll, and more than 60 percent of Americans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that established the right to abortion.
Ocober 13, 2005:
O\'Reilly: Planned Parenthood \"encouraging\" abortion among teens because they \"get paid for every abortion\"
On the October 13 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Fox News host Bill O\'Reilly suggested that Planned Parenthood \"would be encouraging\" young women to get abortions because \"Planned Parenthood gets paid for every abortion that they\'re involved with.\"
Planned Parenthood is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, with a policy of providing services irrespective of income. Many Planned Parenthood clinics offer services on a sliding scale based on ability to pay; the organization\'s website states that it is committed to \"ensuring that financial concerns are not a barrier to necessary health care.\" These policies and rates extend to all services provided by Planned Parenthood.
Chairman Ailes, your situation is dire. You have either a total buffoon or a loose-cannon-pathological-liar in Bill O\'Reilly (possibly both). You owe it to your shareholders in your fiduciary responsibilities to minimize the risk of marginalized profitability due to excessive liability, defamation and slander lawsuits. I and the undersigned all demand that you protect our investment in FOX News LLC by removing Mr. O\'Reilly from the air forthwith.